Let me ask you a question...

If someone asks you to work for him without him paying you anything in return, basically you're working for free, are you going to accept it?

Probably not.

What if I told you that this person who wants you to work for free is people like Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos? Are you willing to work for FREE?

Some of you may say yes and some may say no.

There's no right or wrong answer to this question. But your answer will most probably determine your financial outcome, whether you're struggling financially for life or you can enjoy financial freedom.

Here's the thing...

A lot of successful people encourage young people to go work for somebody for free, especially for people you love and admire.

Similarly, Robert Kiyosaki, the international best-selling author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, told the story in his book about how his "Rich dad" made him and his best friend Mike work for him (Rich Dad) without paying them anything at a very young age.

This is not a coincidence.

There's a rationale for how working for FREE can help you succeed.

How does working for FREE leads you to success?

The reason is this...

You need to detach MONEY from the amount of TIME and EFFORT you put into something.

We're so used to get paid based on the amount of time we work. Am I right?

That's how we were taught and raised. It is also how the traditional society works. There's nothing wrong with that.

But if you want to succeed in life and achieve financial freedom, you've got to change your mindset and think differently.

The reason why successful people like Gary Vee advises young people to work for somebody for free is because they need to put their main focus on learning, instead to earning.

If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you need to learn from someone who has already achieved success in that area. The only way for you to DIRECTLY learn from someone like that is to work for him/her for FREE.

Similarly, Robert Kiyosaki was taught to work for FREE when he was young because that's when he learnt how to make your business or your money work for you, instead of you working for it.

If you've studied people's success stories, you'll find that most people who succeed has undergone a long period of time working for nothing but a dream!

So, How does this apply to Affiliate Marketing?

Simply put, the only way for you to succeed in affiliate marketing is when you are willing to work for FREE.

Why?

Affiliate Marketing is just like any other business, it takes time for you to build your foundation, set up your website, create content, get your content rank in Google.

All these take time and you're not going to be PAID during this time period.

For those people who only focus on the results and how fast they can start making money, they'll likely to quit prematurely. Simply because they don't have enough patience.

However, if you're willing to consistently put in the hard work despite not seeing any results, there's a high chance that you'll succeed eventually.

If you keep taking actions, keep creating quality contents, keep learning, eventually Google will trust your website, give you the rankings and send you the traffic you deserve.

Affiliate Marketing and any other business work like an exponential graph:

In the beginning, you're going to put in a lot of hard work without seeing any results.

Slowly, you business will start to gain some traction over time if you keep putting in consistent hard work.

And eventually, your traffic, sales and income will just grow exponentially.

That's the reality. But in order for you to enjoy the huge reward at the back, you need to be willing to WORK FOR FREE and push through the tough times.

Here's my personal proof:

This was my income growth from Jan 2018 to Sept 2018.

Can you see how this pattern is exactly the same as what I've illustrated earlier on?

How long does it take?

A lot of beginners keep asking the same question: How long before I can see any results? How long before I can start making money?

The answer is simple: It depends!

It depends on how much time and effort you're willing to put into your business every week and every single day.

For me personally, I started working on this full-time since Jan 2018. Prior to that I was constantly learning for almost 2 years when I was still serving full-time army.

So if you have a full-time job or any other commitments, you're most likely going to take longer.

But the most important thing to know is that Wealthy Affiliate defintiely works.

And whether it works for you all depends on YOURSELF!

If you can change your mindset and start working for free, you're not going to ask those questions again and that's when you're more likely to succeed.

But for the sake of those who are really really curious and want to have a rough gauge, I'll end off this post with another post I've written on this matter:

How Long Does it take to Make Money at Wealthy Affiliate?

I know it's hard to change your mindset by just reading one blog post.

But I do sincerely hope that this concept makes sense to you and you can consciously make those changes in terms of your mindset and your actions day by day.

Slow and steady wins the race!

I wish you all the best and I'll see you at the top :)